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Chris Loar

@chrisloar.bsky.social
994 followers 2.1K following 49 posts

English Prof, Western Washington U. Eighteenth-century lit and culture, ecology, histories of empire, race, and slavery. Co-Editor at Digital Defoe.

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Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
My whole career the Humanities seem to have been curled up in a defensive crouch trying to justify our meaning/existence. At times it has even seemed a productive thought exercise, but I think generally whatever body has demanded the justification is not really open to being persuaded of anything.
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S.E. Sinkhorn @sesinkhorn.com · 20/09/2026
I am forever thinking about how being in college was just me discovering that I like LEARNING. I liked learning things about the world I didn't previously know! it was a lot of fun! and I think of how many students don't get to love learning, they just get to be cogs in a machine.
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Gingerspiced @gingerspiced.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Pete Hegseth: "We need our warriors to embrace the Spartan mindset" U.S. Military: *suffers crushing defeat to the Persians*
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 14/07/2026
stuff like this is why one important avenue for court reform is just nixing the shadow docket altogether and forcing these people to explain themselves to the public when they issue orders. also, making their records property of the united states and subject to publication when they leave the bench.
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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 14/07/2026
This morning in Biddeford, Maine, a 26-year-old man said goodbye to his wife and daughter and left for work. Moments later he was dead, shot in the head by ICE agents, the second man ICE has killed in six days. ICE is killing our neighbors. ICE cannot be reformed. Abolish ICE.
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Gillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 12/07/2026
BREAKING: Lindsey Graham’s sudden death reveals everyone’s wake-up time on Sundays.
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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 02/07/2026
dems need to get the fuck on TV and start proposing the most extreme Supreme Court changes imaginable so that expanding the court seems like a modest compromise
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Adam Steinbaugh @adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
After federal agents shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, a New Yorker sent ICE's director an email in January comparing him to a Nazi. This week, DHS agents stalked him across New York. His home. A hotel. They gave his wife a letter warning of criminal prosecution. www.syracuse.com/news/2026/06...
Two DHS agents on a doorbell camera.“You are a monstrous human being and will go down in history as America’s Reinhard Heydrich, the butcher.

“The way you are protecting the obvious execution in Minnesota, even as we see the videos, will lead to your downfall. Even Trump will turn on you before the end, and you will be a sad, despised man who eats himself alive with shame at your own pathetic weakness.

“You will never know peace. You will seek to lose yourself, to escape the burden of knowing the truth about yourself. But wherever you go, you will find yourself. You will torment yourself until your last day on Earth.”
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Jonathan Fine @jonathanbfine.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
i don’t think i should have to return interlibrary loan books to universities that rejected me for jobs
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Elizabeth Picciuto @epicciuto.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
However he is doing right now, we can all be thankful that Giuliani has lived long enough to see a very popular Muslim socialist mayor of NYC.
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pixelatedboat aka “mr bluesky” @pixelatedboat.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
This is not the time for wild speculation about what happened. It’s time to bet on Kalshi about what happened
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Seth Rudy @sethrudy.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
Jane Austen died 20 years before Victoria became queen, therefore NOT VICTORIAN NOT VICTORIAN NOT VICTORIAN I WILL FUCKING CUT YOU NOT VICTORIAN
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Prof MNP @nushpowell.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
In 1677, Samuel Pepys wrote that the surest way to break the morale and loyalty of a sailor in the navy was to mess with their rations. Just thinking about this for no reason.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 13/04/2026
i will vote for any candidate who offers up this slogan
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Brad Lander @bradlander.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
The horrors inside these ICE facilities are stunning. Don't look away. For a year, we’ve been working to call attention to the lawlessness & inhumane conditions at 26 Federal Plaza and across the country. (1/2)
nytimes.com
Deaths in ICE Custody Are Growing. ‘They Let Him Rot in There.’
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Dr ShinyGoth @ghostingdani.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
We simply do not need the department of homeland security.
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Better Things Are Possible @internethippo.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
There's a hauntingly beautiful irony in these morons thinking that carefully crafted American hegemony was actually weak and woke, and they would be the ones who would do Power and Dominance properly, and immediately bringing everything crashing down
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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 13/03/2026
Let there be as much outrage from politicians in Washington when kids go hungry as there is when I break bread with New Yorkers.
Senator Tuberville on x writing a response to the @endwokeness account 

Original tweet from @EndWokeness - “less than 25 years apart”
Image 1 - the twin towers as they are hit by a the planes on 9/11/2001
Image 2 - Mayor Mamdani sitting on a prayer rug while hosting an Iftar  at city hall

Quote tweet from Senator Tuberville - “the enemy is inside the gates.”
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Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
Niche but cool. I mentioned in class that there was little evidence that #18thc readers had ever responded to the invitation tendered by the blank page in Tristram Shandy & drawn the Widow Wadman. & then a student revealed the portrait of Slawkenbergius she found inscribed into her copy of our novel
Graffito on a page in a copy of Tristram Shandy: a line drawing in profile of Slawkenbergius, recognizable because of his large nose.
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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
Yeah, this clip will certainly be shown as evidence at the trials.
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StrictlyChristo 🇺🇦🌻 @strictlychristo.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
She fucking nailed it. 😆
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Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
This is kinda funny but one addendum to Jon Stewart mocking this guy for being brave and unique for standing up to the Trans Cartel of country music is that the culture war within the Nashville scene is actually very interesting youtube.com/shorts/9M42e...
youtube.com
TPUSA halftime performer Lee Brice took a heroic stand against country music's trans cartel
YouTube video by The Daily Show
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the Mountain Goats @themountaingoats.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
man I’m sorry to be all corny here but when I see a “the city is beautiful! There’s more to it than homeless people!” I gotta say you know who’s also beautiful? People who have no place to live & are trying to get by in a system that has turned its back on them & if you don’t see that that’s on you
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Jen Bendery @jbendery.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
Just heard back from DHS on why they abruptly expedited Ramos' asylum hearing: “These are regular removal proceedings. This is standard procedure and there is nothing retaliatory about enforcing the nation’s immigration laws. He will receive full due process." (This is not standard procedure.)
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 29/01/2026
remember what JD Vance said of the ICE agents that arrested this little boy: “what did you expect them to do?”
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
I do not regret to inform you that we are going to win
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Sarah Tolcser @tolcser.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
In case anyone was wondering how it’s going over on American Girl doll Instagram
User @backintimeag: 
The text “Kirsten will be happy when ICE gets the fuck out of Minnesota” over a picture of 1850s immigrant and Minnesota-dwelling doll character Kirsten Larson in the snow.
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Elizabeth Wrigley-Field @wrigleyfield.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
I met an absolutely lovely academic who asked whether my department back home is affected by ICE -- a question dramatizing how little info is getting out. For the record, the small example I chose: My dept has a carpool to pick up grad students of color who can't safely commute to campus alone.
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Heba Gowayed هبة جويد @hebagowayed.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
ICE is not Gestapo, but slave patrols. It's not foreign, but deeply American, categorical brutalization of non-white people (& now those who stand up for them). They do not need to have warrants, and people facing deportation are not entitled to lawyers, or what we imagine as due process.
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Walter (🎃👻 RIP 🪦💀) @nedzeppelin.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
Someone said mean things to me and now I’ve got internal bleeding, this sucks
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Walter (🎃👻 RIP 🪦💀) @nedzeppelin.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
This dude rules
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 14/01/2026
this is all to say that should democrats win the house and senate this november, they should hold similarly dramatic — which is to say televised and highly publicized — hearings on the conduct of ICE and CBP, with testimony from victims. we want as much of *this* as possible in the record. (3/?)
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 10/01/2026
We evacuated our kids out of Minneapolis this weekend and my spouse reports that as she drove them out of town she saw "multiple freeway exits where people are being pulled over." It feels like the Twin Cities is being subjugated by a hostile occupying force.
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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
Like those before it, that insane, vile DHS statement about the Minneapolis shooting isn't about covering anything up. It's performative lying. They aren't trying to persuade anyone that their agents did nothing wrong. They're trying to project that their agents can get away with anything.
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Tom Dreisbach @tomdreisbach.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
I've watched thousands of videos from the Jan. 6 riot as part of NPR's reporting and archive project on that day. Here are some of the lesser known videos that have really stuck with me. 🧵
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 04/01/2026
on this sunday-est of sundays, syllabus-ing for a new term you're not alone against the oligarch agenda of cognitive deskilling, data capture, surveillance, and bias: we've got assignment ideas, memes, recommended readings, o' captain speeches, syllabus policies, and so much more against-a-i.com
against-a-i.com
AGAINST AI -
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Richard E Frankel @refrankel.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
I went to bed in 2026 and woke up in 1898.
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Sky Marchini @sky.skymarchini.net · 31/12/2025
One of my furthest beliefs is that the next democratic administration needs to hire half a million IRS agents. 70,000 was far too few.
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Mark Jacob @markjacob.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
JD Vance’s statement is an echo of a Klan leader in Florida, who declared in 1990: “Why should we apologize for being white?” 4/6 🧵
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Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
If you're having trouble watching other versions, here's an Internet Archive link for the 60 Minutes CECOT segment suppressed by Bari Weiss in the U.S.
archive.org
Inside Cecot : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
https://bsky.app/profile/jasonparis.bsky.social/post/3mam565pyes24
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Prof MNP @nushpowell.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
I know disciplinary standards differ, but I've been at this for decades and I've never cited a paper I didn't read. Didn't like, sure; didn't understand, often; kind of drifted off in the middle there, it happens. But didn't read at all? Nah. Come on.
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Seth Rudy @sethrudy.bsky.social · 20/12/2025
Some of those pages are so redacted you’d think Parson Yorick just died
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 09/12/2025
it is actually kind of bananas how unitary executive theorists have taken a straightforward clause requiring the president to "faithfully execute the laws" and transformed it into a grant for the exercise of limitless unenumerated power.
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Senator Patty Murray @murray.senate.gov · 06/12/2025
There’s no telling how many similar stories are not being told for fear of retaliation. By now, everyone should realize Trump is not going after violent criminals or the worst of the worst—he is terrorizing everyone, including U.S. citizens, and their loved ones.
murray.senate.gov
Senator Murray Condemns Egregious Use of Force by ICE as Constituent is Mauled by Attack Dog, Demands Release from NWIPC to Receive Appropriate Medical Care - Senator Patty Murray
***(WARNING: Graphic Content) Photos of Wilmer’s injuries, photos of Wilmer and his children, and partial video of his detainment are available to the press HERE*** Washington, D.C. –  Today, U.S. Sen...
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Bill Barnwell @billbarnwell.com · 04/12/2025
I'm at the combination
a combination urgent care and taco bell
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sarah jeong @sarahjeong.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
this is what will show up if you invite me to your ai & copyright law conference
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Philosophy Talk @philtalkradio.bsky.social · 16/11/2025
Margaret Cavendish, the 17th-century Duchess of Newcastle and subject of today's broadcast, was a fascinating polymath. Check out her radical vision of equality at Philosophers Corner, and tune in at 11 am on KALW 91.7 FM in the SF Bay Area: philosophytalk.org/blog/margare... #PhilSky #WiseWomen
philosophytalk.org
Margaret the First - Philosophy Talk
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle in the 17th century, was a fascinating polymath. And she had a radical idea about the universe: everything in it thinks. Amoebas, rocks, trees, dust—you name i...
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 13/11/2025
you could fact check this — there aren’t 30 million illegal immigrants and there is no evidence that the presence of an immigrant in say houston has any impact on housing in madison, wisconsin — or you could note straightforwardly that this is just nazi rhetoric
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